You're insane. Valve is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming since the invention of the laser mouse, and they roll around in hills of giant cash. I don't understand your position. How is Valve a "terrible" example of the PC gaming market?

Y'see it doesn't really tally with my point (which was solely that Valve are a fantastic example of there still being plenty of revenue to be made from the PC gaming market, and nothing else) but I'm quite keen to know what they've done that's so detrimental to the market. As a content distribution service they're fantastic, as a social environment Steam tops any competitor I can think of, and Greenlight has given prominence to a huge number of indie and minor titles that probably wouldn't have even seen the light of day without the Valve's intervention. They can deliver content on demand at a lower price than basically any other retailer and that's the whole reason they've become the cornerstone of the market. Digital sales vastly outstrip physical ones and that's pretty much solely down to Steam.

The way you talk about them implies they're a combination of the corporate practices of EA combined with the fascist tendencies towards small developers of Apple. I really struggle to see that reflected in reality.

-EDIT-

I don't see why people feel Valve are responsible for the transition to digital content delivery. They created the marketplace but that was in response to consumer demands. They hedged a very big bet against it succeeding- Half-Life 2- and brought in a great deal of third party support very rapidly. That was almost solely down to how successful the experiment was. If anything, it's about the best example I can think of of a software company producing a product demanded by its customers and having it revolutionise the marketplace

Otter

Exactly, sivi, exactly. I reckon Valve garners a lot of hatred simply because it is large and successful and, when it first came about, it was totally unorthodox.

If I had any bones to pick with steam, it'd be for the games they don't sell. I wish it were this simple to buy any game. When people lament the loss of the "on shelf gaming industry" I have to counter: big whoop! Gone are the days of hemming and hawing over which game you want to pick up based on reading the cover art in the dimly lit section of Future Shop that they hid all of the PC games in. I don't exactly miss that.

And maybe it's just because I'm old but physical copies of anything - except for books, we all have our fetishes - don't really have any pull over me. If there's an apocalypse and I can't download and install the GOTY version of Dishonored that I bought on sale for 7.99, so be it. I will take that risk.

AllenKS

Exactly, sivi, exactly. I reckon Valve garners a lot of hatred simply because it is large and successful and, when it first came about, it was totally unorthodox.

If I had any bones to pick with steam, it'd be for the games they don't sell. I wish it were this simple to buy any game. When people lament the loss of the "on shelf gaming industry" I have to counter: big whoop! Gone are the days of hemming and hawing over which game you want to pick up based on reading the cover art in the dimly lit section of Future Shop that they hid all of the PC games in. I don't exactly miss that.

And maybe it's just because I'm old but physical copies of anything - except for books, we all have our fetishes - don't really have any pull over me. If there's an apocalypse and I can't download and install the GOTY version of Dishonored that I bought on sale for 7.99, so be it. I will take that risk.

trip

One is not better than the other. They are plain and simply different forms of gaming entertainment. Both deliver different experiences.

Here's the old man part:

-I was there for the birth of arcade games and home video games.

-Back before the PC was a household item, I was playing games on my Apple][.

-Naturally I moved over to PC and spent my existence keeping my rig up to the best specs I could (all in the interest of playing games).

I was a staunch PC gamer and refused to even recognize the console world [post Sega Genesis]. We did have a NES and Genesis, but they were what my girl played while I played my PC games.

A few months after the release of GTA IV on PC I went out and picked up a 360 just so that I could see what it was like to play IV on a console(and to play Madden since EA dicked the PC release). I was kind of let down, but I discovered that the whole experience was a completely different experience. It was nice and kind of fun to be all cozy on my couch. It was a more relaxing way to 'game'.

Just the distance alone between player and screen should be enough to change how a game is played.

But if you ask me what is the better experience; I will forever say coin-op arcade machines. I've got them in my house and they clock way more hours than my console and PC gaming combined.

But really...

PC. I double dip almost all the AAA titles and the console releases never come close. FONV, Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, MaxPayne 3, BF3, and so on. IMO they are just way better looking, easier to play, and way more immersive.

And who said Valve is horrible? PC gaming might never really have been as close to death as people think, but Valve was like an amazing B12 shot of energy.

Mockage

Why do we even allow these threads? It will always end up in arguments. Some people can't handle debate.

-snip-

Why are you being so pessimistic? So far this thread has been fine. Get out.

Yeah people saying PC gamers are fat is great discussion. Your thread standards are lower than Fritzl's Dungeon.

You claim my thread standards are lower than Fritzl's Dungeon when you make the notion that this thread is an uncivilized heap of arguments without actually reading it. And on top of that, you plaster a sh*tty meme to support your claim.

Finite

You're insane. Valve is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming since the invention of the laser mouse, and they roll around in hills of giant cash. I don't understand your position. How is Valve a "terrible" example of the PC gaming market?

Because they OWN the market. They control more of the market than any other company in any other field of business, and that isn't a good thing Otter, it removes competition and as a result allows Steam more and more dominance until they start to realise that the consumers have nowhere else to turn, monopolisation is never a good thing regardless of what you think of the company as a whole, and it has never turned out well.

Valve is a terrible example of the PC gaming market because more or less they ARE the PC gaming market. You guys don't seem to understand the difference between doing wrong, and simply being wrong. Valve have done nothing but great things, but when things get to large they start to hurt things they originally tried to protect. You people are prime examples of just what I'm talking about, to you Valve can do no wrong, so if and when they do, you won't see it as such and it's from there that the issues stem.

Defend them all you want but Valve isn't proof that just any company can do good in that market, just proof that one company can apply the mindset of Veni Vidi Vici and be seen as heralds because of it. Despite all of the great other alternatives like Desura, Indivania and GamersGate you all choose Steam and you probably have never heard of most of the sites I just mentioned.

Sites like that don't deserve to die, but they inexorably will and with them so could the market.

The fault in this line of reasoning is that steam isn't to blame for any of your gripes, obviously, but like the Nintendos, Microsofts, EAs and Apples of the past, will be a target of angsty "there's a better way" types for decades to come. Such is the price of success.

I laughed at your doomsday scenario tacked on to the end, there. For one claiming to promote a grander perspective I'd hope for a less myopic point of view.

The fault in this line of reasoning is that steam isn't to blame for any of your gripes, obviously, but like the Nintendos, Microsofts, EAs and Apples of the past, will be a target of angsty "there's a better way" types for decades to come. Such is the price of success.

Still, it's highly likely that they could become dictators in their own market, enforcing things the people don't want or like but are so accustomed and trustworthy of both the company and the service that they'd be willing to overlook each flaw, each and every mistake they've made and will make. It's like a domestic violence case in here.

Otter

But you have to realize that a) you're dealing purely in hypotheticals here and b) we've already seen the backlash when companies make these sorts of missteps - Battle.net, Origins, GFWL, etc - people don't put up with bullsh*t unless it's worth their while.

So while you claim that steam could, somehow, someday, be terrible for the industry, you have to acknowledge that right now, in the real world, steam has made great efforts to revive it.

Finite

But you have to realize that a) you're dealing purely in hypotheticals here and b) we've already seen the backlash when companies make these sorts of missteps - Battle.net, Origins, GFWL, etc - people don't put up with bullsh*t unless it's worth their while.

So while you claim that steam could, somehow, someday, be terrible for the industry.

It already has, the few other digital distribution resources that are currently available are already dying due to Steam's immense popularity, it's existence is likely to highly damage if not kill the PC gaming market, we've seen what has happened when game companies are given near unlimited power, EA, Activision, Microsoft and many others have abused consumer rights greatly.

When Steam's the last man standing, do you truly believe they'll stick to what's ethically right or take the extra billion or so dollars that they'd make from exploiting the system they control?

My answer, too much of a good thing eh. (Yes I did that because you're Canadian, deal with it )

Vercetti42

I still fail to see how Valve will become a terrible thing for gaming.

They revolutionized PC gaming with Half-Life 2 and Steam, they are keeping PC gaming alive. Your point is making no sense Nova, you claim that they are a bad thing to the market when it is the exact opposite.

Finite

What is it with you people and not understanding the basics of monopolisation? Too much control is never good (I've lost count how many times I've had to mention this, and Valve is no exception to this rule, they are a company, their main goal being to make as much cash as possible with as little spending money as they can. Obviously Valve are doing good things in the gaming market, but it's starting to become abundantly clear just how powerful and influential they are, all it takes is one little push and the ball starts rolling.

Let me tell you, we're talking about a pretty f*cking big ball here.

Ace, this is directed primarily towards you. You even admit it, they are keeping PC gaming ALIVE, ask yourself. What would happen if Valve went bankrupt tomorrow entirely theoretically of course but none the less imagine what would happen to the PC gaming landscape if they did. And before anyone gets on my case about that being completely improbable I agree, but it shows you just how drastic and dire the situation is.

Otter

Pure sky-is-falling nonsense. The market exists because people want games. That's the only thing that, if it changes, will kill the industry. If steam goes tits up tomorrow, someone else will be ready to grab the reigns.

The thing 'you people' who rail against apparent monopolies don't seem to understand is, well, what a monopoly is. The word, and of course therefore the implications, is quite literal.

Finite

Pure sky-is-falling nonsense. The market exists because people want games. That's the only thing that, if it changes, will kill the industry. If steam goes tits up tomorrow, someone else will be ready to grab the reigns.

There really aren't any other digital distribution services capable of handling Steam's load, even if all the ones that I've previously mentioned somehow decided to collaborate, share their severs, storage and such, they still wouldn't come close being to able to take on what Steam would leave behind. Once again though, that won't happen, what will though is Steam taking over the market and then causing a clusterf*ck of an issue by an employee forgetting to perform one simple task, it is simply a matter of time.

As for the fact that the market exists solely because people want games, that's a gross simplification if there ever was one. There are so very many unforeseen things that could go wrong, issues that could occur, things that need to happen and intricate little details that are holding the market together but from the eyes of an industry outside would simply seem menial and worthless. The market does exist because of that demand, but the market itself is nowhere near as simple, take out one tiny cog, and suddenly that demand doesn't mean sh*t if the price to fill it skyrockets.

There is a reason we have competition in a market and Steam has none, it is currently on-board the Titanic, the greatest ship ever constructed on a maiden voyage across oceans that the Gods themselves would envy. The iceberg may not pop into sight for sometime, but, by the time that it does, it'll be far to late to save everyone on board, and the selfish and greedy will live whilst the selfless and giving stay behind to die. A rather out there analogy I'll grant you but it serves its purpose, to illustrate the key points of what will happen the moment a tiny splinter appears in Steam's side, and then after some unexpected tinkering, it all falls apart.

To be blunt, the PC gaming market is betting all of its cash on one horse, and it's not always going to win, hell maybe it'll trip, maybe it'll stumble, maybe it'll severely injure its owner. Either way, Steam cannot be the industry's sole action plan if it is to survive much longer. We need viable alternatives to Steam, and currently we don't have them, that's a fault on our part as a consumer, we should do a better job bringing competition and diversification to a marvelously wonderful marketplace, instead we're just waiting until sh*t hits the fan. That is what I worry about, not the fact that Steam is currently doing and will continue to do great things, but that time is the great leveler, and sooner or later, unless we change the way we buy and consume our entertainment.

Or we go the way of the dodo, it's really not a hard concept to grasp, so why are you denouncing it so quickly. Rushing to the aid of Steam when we all know that this will happen, if don't change our tune than something's going to change it for us, and I don't think that whatever that is has the consumers wants and needs in mind.

But you have to realize that a) you're dealing purely in hypotheticals here and b) we've already seen the backlash when companies make these sorts of missteps - Battle.net, Origins, GFWL, etc - people don't put up with bullsh*t unless it's worth their while.

So while you claim that steam could, somehow, someday, be terrible for the industry.

It already has, the few other digital distribution resources that are currently available are already dying due to Steam's immense popularity, it's existence is likely to highly damage if not kill the PC gaming market, we've seen what has happened when game companies are given near unlimited power, EA, Activision, Microsoft and many others have abused consumer rights greatly.

When Steam's the last man standing, do you truly believe they'll stick to what's ethically right or take the extra billion or so dollars that they'd make from exploiting the system they control?

My answer, too much of a good thing eh. (Yes I did that because you're Canadian, deal with it )

The other digital distribution mediums aren't dying because of Steam's popularity, they're dying because of Steam's superiority as both a reliable content distribution platform and a social media entity. Only Uplay even comes vaguely close in terms of usability and that's with only a minute selection of the titles available on Steam.

There are also numerous other issues with your assertions, that I'll break down in easy-to-follow, bite-sized chunks. Some of these seem to come down to you misunderstanding the economic concept of monopolies.

1) You can only assert a monopoly when other viable alternatives do not exist. Other viable alternatives do exist. I'm sure I'm not unique in also purchasing products from Uplay rather than Steam, as well as physical copies fro Amazon or even the supermarket. You can't allege a monopoly unless competition has been eradicated, and despite the huge surge in Steam sales over the years their market share has effectively plateaued. Maybe 80% of PC gamers use Steam, but they don't solely use Steam. Coke doesn't hold the fizzy drink monopoly if 80% of consumers drink it, but the majority of those also drink Pepsi too.

2) Valve have been extremely receptive to community incentives. I don't know if you've got any familiarity with their entirely non-linear, non-hierarchical business structure, but I'd wager that's probably the primary cause. They're almost the polar opposite of most developers. You can't really assert that they're likely to be influenced negatively by their financial strength and market share if they're already ranking highly on both and still engaging in ethical and community-centric business practices. The problem is that, whilst I'm sure you personally find your argument very compelling, it doesn't really seem to have much of a basis in reality.

3) Veiled accusations of us all having been brainwashed by Valve (yes, they're in your posts) are typically the last gasp of the deluded conspiracy theorist. Please don't debase yourself by making them.

Finite

The other digital distribution mediums aren't dying because of Steam's popularity, they're dying because of Steam's superiority as both a reliable content distribution platform and a social media entity. Only Uplay even comes vaguely close in terms of usability and that's with only a minute selection of the titles available on Steam.

1) You can only assert a monopoly when other viable alternatives do not exist. Other viable alternatives do exist. I'm sure I'm not unique in also purchasing products from Uplay rather than Steam, as well as physical copies fro Amazon or even the supermarket. You can't allege a monopoly unless competition has been eradicated, and despite the huge surge in Steam sales over the years their market share has effectively plateaued. Maybe 80% of PC gamers use Steam, but they don't solely use Steam. Coke doesn't hold the fizzy drink monopoly if 80% of consumers drink it, but the majority of those also drink Pepsi too.

2) Valve have been extremely receptive to community incentives. I don't know if you've got any familiarity with their entirely non-linear, non-hierarchical business structure, but I'd wager that's probably the primary cause. They're almost the polar opposite of most developers. You can't really assert that they're likely to be influenced negatively by their financial strength and market share if they're already ranking highly on both and still engaging in ethical and community-centric business practices. The problem is that, whilst I'm sure you personally find your argument very compelling, it doesn't really seem to have much of a basis in reality.

3) Veiled accusations of us all having been brainwashed by Valve (yes, they're in your posts) are typically the last gasp of the deluded conspiracy theorist. Please don't debase yourself by making them.

Exactly, to use your own example in this context makes perfect sense, y'see people that buy Coke aren't only exclusive to the product, they'll drink Pepsi too, but they like Coke, they prefer Coke and although Pepsi tastes nearly as good it's not as wide-spread has coke, doesn't have that specific flavour and more importantly, there just aren't enough varieties of it for it to be worth switching to as your primary soft drink. So you stick with Coke, maybe you buy a Pepsi once or twice every week, but we both know you'll have bought at least three dozen cokes at that point and the Pepsi is only really a substitute for when you find yourself lacking the ability to find a Coke in whatever store you're in at the time.

You have, whether you did knowingly or not given Coke far more money than Pepsi while still being relatively impartial to how or what you choose to drink. Now the same could be said of people just subconsciously using Steam, I mean think of it, everything about Steam is meant to be more addictive to you than Farmville is to a forty-five-year-old divorcee. Valve have done and are continuing to do everything they possibly can so as to make you want to keep coming back to the service, even going to so far as to implement a trading card program of sorts to tap into many gamer's hidden geek.

Now whether you say that you enjoy these additions or not is entirely up to you, but regardless of whether you like them or not, you start to grow a dependency for them. Think of the ease that using Steam allows you when you want to play one of any thousands of interesting titles, it's rather mind-boggling to say the least, the system is neat, tidy, clean and tight, yet it also shows off just enough skin for something to always catch our eye. Let's say you buy a game off Steam for the first time, you've got a nice new, easy to navigate area where you can play your new game at anytime you see fit, then buy another because you think it's easy to use, and then another and another until eventually it gets to a stage where the majority of your time is spent on Steam and most of it isn't even spent gaming.

I know for a fact that at this point I've spent more time building, creating and looking for modifications for Skyrim than I actually have spent playing it, but all this while I've still been connected to Steam, I never leave it during this process, I can go from making a modification to looking up one's other people have made to playing and testing them out all within the space of about a minute and a half. The ease and accessibility that Steam has is by far one of its biggest trump cards, I could never navigate Desura or GamersGate like I could Steam and that's precisely the point, I know Steam better than I know any other digital distributor on the Internet, and although I may occasionally use them here and there, I know damn well that I will always come back to, and enjoy bouncing around Steam's menus a whole lot more than trying to maneuver myself through their labyrinthine-esque menu system.

Steam is just more appealing to me in every conceivable way and because of that I'd much rather use Steam than IndiCity for example, and even if there was a title on IndiCity, or Origin or GamersGate that I want that wasn't purchasable from Steam, you know damn well I'd only be using the competitor's service for that reason and that reason alone. If it were to launch on Steam there'd be no reason whatsoever to use the alternate cerise and this is where games like SimCity (the newer one) and other exclusive titles get off using ridiculous DRM services, they can abuse this sort of thing because they're using their own software and not Steam, so evidently the only big buying point that there is to using a competitors service is if they're being selfish bastards who want nothing more than to take the rest of money and leave me stranded with a game that's almost constantly broken and costs twice as much as any game twice as good as it.

The only reason we choose to drink Pespi is because the store we're in doesn't sell Coke.

Finite

Valve go bankrupt? That can never happen. Even if it did which is very unlikely, like someone else here said, probably Microsoft can jump in and steady the boat.

It was, as I stated an entirely hypothetical question, with its only purpose being to show you just how many people are pinning their hopes on Steam's service and (rightly) ignoring the others. This would be good but I'm not the sort of person that'd leave all my eggs in one basket if y'know what I mean, yet because of Steam's evident superiority over its competitors unless it's over an exclusive title I'm not going to budge, and that's a problem, because should this ship go down, it'll take a lot of people with it Ace.

Otter

Nova, I hate to make a judgement call like this but it seems like economics isn't your strongest subject. You're using folk wisdom and doomsday prophesies that, frankly, don't make any sense.

As a minion of the advertising industry itself, I can also tell you that your assertion about steam aiming to be more addictive than Zynga is wrong - not because steam wouldn't try to maximize their ease of use and retention, but because Zynga's practices are insidiously designed to package and sell bullsh*t. I've been present at demonstrations where the speakers are almost frothing at the mouth because they're so f*cking excited about their returns from their latest slot machine "innovation" (likely a combination of RGB values plus a two pixel shift to the right). There's a fundamental disconnect there between the interests of zynga and the interests of the consumer, and I assure you that if steam were to lean so heavily on these practices they would lose the confidence of consumers in droves.

A marketplace is a self-correcting beast; there's no viable scenario where the failure of steam would result in the death of PC gaming. Not even a wild hypothetical.

King Andreas

I've been in more arguments with my fellow console gamers than PC gamers. I get bullied for being a San Andreas fanatic and PS2 diehard who won't "move on". I don't want to play GTA 5 (I did read the story though), nor do I want a PS3. So what?

marmoo

ARMA 2 because I could not find a physical copy here in the UK and GTA San Andreas as it was in a sale at 2.99 when disc copy was still retailing at about 10 pounds. The rest of my catalogue is disc including Half Life 2. Yes Steam does have a dominant position in the market but from my limited experience of it I can not fault it. It works, it has a varied catalogue of games from a multitude of developers and encourages independent developers also.

Your criticism of it just because it is perceived to be a monopoly and what could happen is a little paper thin

All the more apt because it doesn't actually have a monopoly. Whilst our colleague Secura's response was quite detailed, it didn't at any point explain that I was wrong in my initial categorisation of monopolies. A monopoly is the absence of competition. A market where competition exists, and where the majority of consumers chose multiple competing products from competing businesses, cannot by its very nature be a monopoly.

Finn 7 five 11

All the more apt because it doesn't actually have a monopoly. Whilst our colleague Secura's response was quite detailed, it didn't at any point explain that I was wrong in my initial categorisation of monopolies. A monopoly is the absence of competition. A market where competition exists, and where the majority of consumers chose multiple competing products from competing businesses, cannot by its very nature be a monopoly.

Exactly, if steam starts to try rip people off or implement bullsh*t, people will just move on to something else.